Mick, if the nuc that has low numbers is doing well otherwise, but the queen is shooting blanks you could do a combine, but of course you would lose that one queen. I would try as Brendhan has suggested first, to give her, them, a kickstart, but if all else fails do a combine.

try swapping her empty pollen frame with one from the other nuc which has pollen and feed her syrup since you say she has no stores and give her a frame of capped brood. when you pull the frame of brood from the other hive, give it a couple of shakes [after making sure the queen isn't on it] tp dislodge most of the adult bees. the ones left clinging on are usually the younger nurse bees. gl!

The fact that she's running and hiding leads me to believe you have a virgin queen, which means either the other queen failed or they swarmed. Look for open brood, capped brood and emerging brood to see if there was a gap in egg laying.

G-Day MICK, So you have one hive going flat out like a lizzard drinking, And You have one hive with a possable Dud, I would do as they say and give the weak hive a frame of brood and stores and hope they pick up soon. You should be going into fall pritty soon so they should be doing well. If you think they would do better you could kill off the weaker queen and combine the weaker hive Have a G-DAY Mick

One wax moth larvae immediately ran like the roadrunner out the entrance. I spose in went 500 nurse bees and a coupla thousand eggs.

Interestingly there are bees buzzing around the vents. This happened to this nuc when I got it. You know, Im now thinking the other hive robbed this one out. Either that, or the bees from either hive are keen on the scent from this one. Are they trying to get in and kill bees? rob stores? or just dumb?

Anyway, Ive gone from one bee a minute leaving/entering the weak one to 1 bee every 5 seconds.

The bees in the good nuc are not impressed. Stinging me 6 hours after the event.

Mick, good, you have taken measures to strengthen this colony. I am sure this will help out alot. I remember you speaking in an earlier post about how much weaker this colony was than the other package colony. It is important, so important, to try and keep colony numbers reasonably equal. Especially during times when there may be a dearth. Stronger colonies will rob out weaker colonies as soon as they figure out that there is a weak state. Bees are survivors. Have a great and awesome day. Cindi

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It's hard to beat a frame with eggs and open brood as it gives them the resources to replace a bad queen. It's hard to beat a frame of emerging brood as those bees will quickly repopulate the nuc. A frame of honey for food never hurts if there is room. :)

A week after adding the two frames of brood I had a good look this morning.

No sign of a Queen, no freh eggs.

However I dis spot what could be a Queen cell. I should have taken a pic. I noticed that about 6 bees were inda guarding this cell and fiddling around with it.

So what do you reckon?

BTW do they only make one queen cell or a few?

Also added a frame of last years honey as there dd not seem to be much in the way of stores.

Also noted, on one of the original nuc frames, 5 bees that seem to have perished while trying to emerge from the cells. There wasnt much else on this frame, MAYBE some nectar way down in the bottom of the cells., but certainly no honey, so I removed that one and replaced it with the frameof honey mentioned above.

Meanwhile the other hive is going gangbustes and are fiesty little buggers. They can sting through the heavy duty cotton suit no worries!

Sounds like a queen cell they are fiddling with for sure. You did right by giving them food. Watch their progress, let them be for a week or so, so she can emerge un-disturbed by you, and take her maiden voyage.

Okies Dallas reckons all three are Queen cells so it looks like the emergency measures have worked, last weekend there was maybe 100 bees in this hive, now there are at least a thousand, thanks to the two frames of brood and nurse bees added.

mick see the queen cell in the middle that looks capped, I would pull that one outif it is capped, destroy it, small queen cells like that usually mean a small not well feed larva, if she hatches first and kills the big queen cells odds are they will be replacing her before long, I always destroy small queen cells if I find any because it usually mean not a very good queen, queens should be big and fat and their cells they were raised in should be also..

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